Contemplations on Spirit
'In this blog I contemplate the means to understand one self and the motivation that moves us to unfold in heart and soul.'
New Moon, July 14: Cancer, and the Square to Saturn in Aries
On July 14, the new moon falls at 14 degrees Cancer - just twelve days before Saturn turns retrograde on July 26, a passage that will hold until December 10 of this year. You can expect a separate blog about this. A new moon at 14 degrees Cancer is a new moon in its own sign: a deep remembering of what carries us emotionally, what we draw our strength from, what nourishes us. How do we care for ourselves, and how do we long to be cared for? Where do our emotional needs live, and how do they find room in the shape of an ordinary day?
The square as an invitation to grow
A square is never comfortable. It is an invitation to grow - but growth through friction, through a certain kind of action, through timing that rarely feels convenient. And yet, paradoxically, the planet standing in that friction, Saturn, asks the opposite of us: to slow down, and to look again, carefully, at everything. This can evoke a dense and heavy feeling and maybe even a sense of melancholy.
Saturn is the last planet visible to the naked eye from Earth - the outermost guardian of boundary and structure. It falls to us to see the threads of cause and consequence, and to take responsibility for the life we are living. Are our choices built to last? And can we stand behind what they bring us? Together with acceptance of the limitations experienced, internally as well as in the world.
Cancer and Aries: the inner and the outer world
This new moon sits in the cardinal signs - which is to say, in the outer world. Do we look for ground and support (Saturn in Aries) in the very things that feed us emotionally (Moon in Cancer) - or do we end up limiting ourselves instead? Where do we feel real, lasting growth, and where do we feel held back in the life we are actually living?
A square to Saturn can feel heavy. Not dramatically so, but slow, almost weighted - as if something has settled on our shoulders and is asking, quietly, for attention. It isn't unusual, under a transit like this, to feel a stronger pull toward silence and toward space of our own - toward withdrawing rather than stepping out. Rest, here, isn't avoidance. It's the room we need to put our own affairs in order, before we move back out into the world again.
Honoring Saturn
Saturn is honored through dark tones - deep blue, black, dark brown - perhaps through a simple striped pattern, or clothing kept plain and unadorned. We honor Saturn by turning inward toward our lasting commitments and our responsibilities. In honoring Saturn, we quite literally make room for this force - in our lives, and in ourselves. Saturn in Aries wants, too, to be visible: out in the world, plainly and without apology.
Perhaps this is the moment to recognize that adulthood means staying in constant relationship with whatever allows us to shape our own lives responsibly - without giving up the abundance of inspiration that is always there. To keep making structured, nourishing choices for ourselves, again and again, so that we become something the endless web of existence can rely on.
Thanks for reading!
p.s. Images are from SourceLibrary.org
